Actor/director James Franco is preparing to tackle a second film adaptation of William Faulkner's work after receiving favourable reviews for his take on the writer's acclaimed novel As I Lay Dying. The star teamed up with his pal Matt Rager to adapt the story and it was warmly received when he unveiled the drama, which co-stars Danny McBride, at the Cannes Film Festival in France earlier this year (13).
He has now set his sights on turning Faulkner's 1929 classic The Sound and the Fury, about a family of Southern aristocrats who fall on hard times, into a film, which he plans to direct and star in, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Franco has already penned the script with Rager and he is hoping to recruit Mad Men star Jon Hamm to portray the family patriarch, Mr. Compson. McBride and Franco's actor brother Dave are also expected to be cast.
The star is keen to begin production on The Sound and the Fury this autumn (13), but admits there are still some funding issues to straighten out: "We're in pretty good shape (financially), but there are a few more things that have to happen before we're good."
The Sound and the Fury was last adapted for the big screen in 1959 by director Martin Ritt, with Yul Brynner in the lead role as Jason Compson.

Reclusive funnyman Dave Chappelle is returning to the spotlight to headline a U.S. comedy tour with the Flight Of The Conchords duo. The cult comedian, who was once considered among the world's funniest people, abruptly walked away from his hit TV programme, Chappelle's Show, in 2005 and has kept a low profile ever since.
He made a handful of impromptu stand-up appearances in New York earlier this year (13), joining pals including Chris Rock and Kevin Hart at the famous Comedy Cellar venue, and now he has announced plans to hit the road for a 13-date trek.
The Oddball Comedy & Curiosity Tour, presented by Will Ferrell's Funny Or Die website, will also feature New Zealanders Brett McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, aka Flight of the Conchords, in addition to Al Madrigal, Brody Stevens and Demetri Martin, among others.
The shows will kick off in Austin, Texas on 23 August (13) and will touch down in New Jersey, Colorado, Arizona and Michigan before wrapping up in Mountain View, California on 20 September (13).

One of the joys of the original Anchorman was seeing Will Ferrell wrangle the best comedic talent in the business into one absurdist fable. Not only was the core team one of funniest of ensembles of all time, but the movie was littered with cameos. And they worked — the news anchor rumble is sublime comedy cinema.
Judging from casting reports arriving from the set of the long-awaited sequel Anchorman 2, Ferrell may have been able to work his contacts yet again to fill the follow-up with an all-star cameo cast. Is there some sort of Hollywood Linkedin that makes this all possible?
The latest addition to Anchorman 2 is one of Ferrell's former costars, but not one of the overtly funny ones — adding charm to her inclusion. Who is it?
Possible spoiler of Anchorman 2 coming at you.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Nicole Kidman has shot a cameo for Anchorman: The Legend Continues, reuniting with Ferrell, her Bewitched costar, for a secret role. There's also no word if she'll be wearing her fake nose from The Hours for an arbitrary reason.
RELATED: Is 'Anchorman 2' a 'Morning Glory' Sequel?
Along with Kidman, Harrison Ford has also filmed a brief role for the sequel, and anchorman deathwatch combatant Vince Vaughn is rumored to be returning as well. As was the case with Anchorman, there may even be cameos the Internet isn't able to hunt down before the movie hits theaters December 20, 2013 (implausible, but possible). With so much star power being primed for the sequel, Ferrell and his Anchorman director Adam McKay make a gamble. An array of cameos worked for the first movie, which had a cool opening in theaters before catching on as a cult hit. People discovered the movie, and in turn, the random actor appearances that flurry the film. Replicating the recipe for Anchorman 2, and with bigger stars, is tricky. There's an event horizon for the tactic — one too many cameos and suddenly, the movie is limping with a crutch.
The cameo is the trickiest gag to pull off. The goal of a celebrity's inclusion into the fictional world is essentially to pull the viewer out of the movie. A famous face walk-on raises awareness that what you're watching is completely fake and that recognizable people are in on the joke. A well-timed cameo can be hilarious — "Oh my gosh, they got that guy!" They can also be… less effective. While basketball star Patrick Ewing showing up as an Angel in The Exorcist III was likely meant to pull the rug from under us, adding a mind-bending element to the movie, it plays as goofy. The same fumbling can occur in comedy with significantly less laughter.
Ewing's The Exorcist III appearances may have been palatable (emphasis on "may") had it not been for a clutter of other cameos around it, including Samuel L. Jackson, Larry King, and Fabio. It entered gimmick territory. That works for some movies: it was a selling point for 1956's Around the World in Eighty Days (Frank Sinatra! Peter Lorre! Cesar Romero!), and became a point of world building for Robert Altman's showbiz-driven The Player and political comedy Dave. Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich took the "realism" aspect to the next level with: The movie required cameos just to make it believable that John Malkovich felt like a real character. Seeing Brad Pitt vouch for the thespian and Charlie Sheen appear as an old friend added gravity to the drama.
Inversely, cameos don't have to make sense to work. Anchorman is a prime example, along with every Saturday Night Live movie ever made, and another non sequiter classic, Zoolander. But these movies weren't building off the success of a similarly patterned predecessors. The "lighting doesn't strike twice" fear of Anchorman comes from 10 years worth of investment on the parts of fans. Anchorman 2 requires cameos — it's a defining part of the original — but risks having too many, being too random, feeing disingenuous to the frat house feel of the first movie.
If there is any franchise that gives us blind hope for Anchorman 2's delicate use of cameos, it's the Muppet movies. Jim Henson and his crack team of filmmakers worked magic with big name talent, their appearances always complimenting the Muppets rather than stealing the spotlight. Rounding up Steve Martin, Bob Hope, James Coburn, Madeline Kahn, and Orson Welles could be a lame attempt at earning cred, but by lowering their status (the celebs always played second fiddle to the puppet stars), it lampooned what we knew about them. Anchorman 2 has the heightened world to play like the Muppets. If you're going to put Kidman in your movie, push her further than Hollywood has allowed her to go.
Maybe bringing back The Hours nose isn't a bad idea.
So how many cameos is too many cameos? What cameos work and which ones fall flat? Name the best and worst in the comments.
Follow Matt Patches on Twitter @misterpatches
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The former EastEnders star was involved in a smash in Derby, England on Wednesday night (30Jan13) after performing in a play. He is being treated for cuts and bruises at the Royal Derby Hospital.
A spokesman for Derbyshire police says, "A 34-year-old man was taken to hospital after being involved in a road accident in Derby.
"The driver, who was the only person in the vehicle, was taken to the Royal Derby Hospital to be treated... No other vehicles were involved and his injuries are not thought to be life threatening."
Gaffney's manager Dave Read says, "He's very lucky. He's in hospital being looked after... he escaped with cuts and bruises. He's going to be OK."
Gaffney's former EastEnders co-star, Spandau Ballet musician Martin Kemp, sent his best wishes to his friend on Twitter.com, writing, "All our love going out to (Dean Gaffney) and his family... Get well soon buddy, I'm thinking of you!"
Blue singer Simon Webbe wrote, "Please say a prayer for a friend of ours Dean Gaffney who is fighting for his life right now. Our thoughts are with you," and Another Level star Dane Bowers adds, "Wishing my boy... all the best!! Thoughts are with him and his family."

Veteran journalist and novelist Jess Walter is no stranger to accolades — his 2005 novel Citizen Vince received the Edgar Allen Poe Award and his 2006 book The Zero was a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the PEN Center Literary Award and L.A. Times Book Prize, to name just a few. But none of his books quite captivated America like his 2012 novel, Beautiful Ruins, which became a bestseller and was named one of the New York Times' 100 notable books of the year. Now, just when it seemed like all America wanted was BDSM erotica and a television lineup full of Drunk Midget House (a fictional Walter creation), Walter's sweeping tale of love lost and found appeared on bookshelves to remind us of literature's capacity to touch as well as to entertain.
After naming Walter one of our 20 Breakout Talents of 2012, Hollywood.com spoke with him about the decades (yes, multiple) he spent writing Beautiful Ruins, the power of language, his fascination with the Richard Burton/Elizabeth Taylor romance, and if he really thinks our country is doomed to create a show like Hunger (which, in Beautiful Ruins, puts eating disorder victims in a house together).
Hollywood.com: Did you know that this book would be received differently when you were writing it?
Jess Walter: Every book is so different almost in every way. It's kind of a cliché among authors that you're reinventing [your process] every time you're doing it. The process of writing this one was so different, in part because I was working on it for 15 years. So off and on I would come in and out of it.
It's funny, I never have any preconceived notion of what a book's going to be or how it's going to land or anything like that. You're almost a slave to the idea. And so the whole time I was working on this, I was probably sort of stunned that it's done as well as it has. Because I would explain it to people and how it's about Hollywood and 1960s Italy and the Donner Party and Edinburgh, Scotland, and they would look at me like I was kind of insane. So I think I worried that it was probably too diffuse and elaborate, so I've been really pleasantly surprised. But I've also learned to not really have too many expectations about these kinds of things. You just write and hope for the best.
You mentioned you spent 15 years writing Beautiful Ruins. Why do you think it was so tricky to piece this book together?
Well, you know, it's kind of funny, but I think what the book ended up being about — which is the span of someone's life and heartbreak and regret and how we are, I think, made better by our failures — I needed 15 years of all that hell. I started the book when my mom was still alive, and she passed away. And I had two kids and watched them grow up, and watched my older daughter become an adult, and I had all sorts of failures and successes. I think the scope of the book almost required a little more living on my part. But I never thought that while I was working on it. Every time I quit working on it I assumed it was because the novel was just bad. I just thought it had failed somehow. I think one of the pleasant surprises of the book was, every time I came back to it, I could reanimate it, which isn't always the case. A lot of times I walk away from something, I abandon it and the paint's dry. I can't manipulate it anymore, I can't get it to do anything else. But it seemed like every time I went back to this book, Pasquale and Dee inspired me. They had more to say. When I started it I thought they would spend 40 years apart, 35 years apart, and by the time I finished it… If it had taken much longer, they would've died before I could've gotten them back together.
You've lived with these characters for so long, was it hard to let them go?
It's always hard to let a novel go, but the characters from all my novels — that old saying that they become real, in a way they really don't. More than anyone, I think the author is aware that they are a collection of your own kinks and narrative impulses. The hard thing to let go of with a book is being afraid that it's not done, "It's not ready! I haven't finished it!" You know, maybe the Donner pitch needs to be a page shorter and maybe Claire's boyfriend needs to get a better job. It's more that you feel you haven't done it justice. It isn't as if the people have an impact on your life other than that you're hauling them around trying to figure out what a satisfying narrative conclusion would be.
You mentioned the Donner pitch, which I thought was such a fun section. Did all these different structural and formatting devices evolve naturally? How did you decide to structure the book the way you did?
When I started working on the book, I had just started doing a little bit of work in Hollywood; I worked on a couple of scripts and I worked on an adaptation of my books and I was just so taken by, first of all, the whole pitching structure, which was so alienating to me as a novelist. It almost seemed like you would choose a writer not based on how they write, but by how they talk about writing. It'd be like choosing a doctor not based on him having experience but him being able to talk about being a doctor. So it always struck me as so interesting, and I would come away from pitches with this feeling of really — and in all of Hollywood — of feeling really disoriented. So I sort of wanted to capture that. And I was thinking about the least likely movie ever and I've always been fascinated by the Donner Party.
When I wrote that chapter, it was originally much much longer, and then I abandoned it for a while. But then I thought, "No, I always wanted a pitch in there." I wanted to treat a movie pitch as if it was a form almost like a poem or a play or a short story or a novel. I've never seen a pitch written as a literary form before, and so, for a while, I toyed with having the pitch be for one of my books. And so, one of the worst chapters I wrote and abandoned was a really postmodern chapter in which I went in my own book and I pitched my novel The Zero to some producers who thought it was a bad idea. Thankfully, I abandoned that. But [the pitch chapter] had been around for a while, and it was really just trying to make it fit and not be indulgent, not take you too far away. The happy ending to it was that I had always envisioned it as a literary form, and then a literary magazine took that excerpt and published it as a standalone piece. And I actually read it, they had a big reading, and people just looked horrified — it's such a grim story.
I read an interview where you said that, for you, starting this book was like Alvis rewriting his one chapter again and again. Was Alvis especially close to your heart as a character?
Probably not as close as Dee and Pasquale, honestly. Just because they've been with me so long. I was thinking about it, I was 31 when I met them, in a way, and 47 when I finished writing about them. But Alvis was — there are all sorts of surrogates you end up having in a novel and, you know, how he was stuck in a chapter, lounging around the Cinque Terre in his American writer decadence, that very much felt like who I got to be.
Alvis' chapter and the sections where he pops up were some of my favorite parts of the novel.
Oh were they? Oh great, thanks. I liked it, too. It was hard having all those fragments and bits, because in each one I started out thinking, "Oh, maybe he's not a good novelist." And then I would find myself taken by the story or the play that Pat's in at the end — at first, I thought it would just be this sort of self-indulgent personal piece, and then by the end I'm like, "I kind of want to see that play!" And Alvis was one of the things that, for me, it was so fulfilling to go back and finish out all those stories. Because I feel like I got to sort of finish Alvis' story for him.
Do you ever think you'll revisit any of these smaller characters or these smaller pieces?
I don't know. I haven't given it much thought. Usually when I finish a book, I kind of feel like the world closes to me. But there are a lot of recurring characters in my first four novels. For instance, Vince from Citizen Vince, which was my third novel, makes an appearance in my fifth novel. Just sort of a walk-on, almost. And I love authors who do that — Larry McMurtry is one — I love the way a minor character in another book will warrant his or her own book later. So I could see that happening. It isn't anything that's burning away at the keyboard right now.
The cynicism of Hollywood and this critique of the taste level of the American public comes up again and again in the book. I loved all the ideas for the terrible reality shows, like Hookbook, and Shane's anorexia house show. How does that compare to your general feeling about the state of the general population's taste these days?
It's funny that it does seem cynical, I guess, and yet I think there's a hopefulness in the book. The thing that sort of amused me when I was finished was realizing that Claire, for all of her good intentions, is really the cynic, and Michael Deane is really the hopeful one — he's endlessly hopeful. And in some ways I feel like he's almost he hero of the entire novel, because he doesn't question the industry, he doesn't turn up his nose at it. A lot of people blame Hollywood as if it's a vacuum, and my point of the novel was always that it reflects ourselves back to us. It can't be any more vacuous and empty than we are because we are feeding it. We're the ones choosing by what we watch which of those TV shows and which movies [are made] — we choose the culture we get. It doesn't come at us arbitrarily. So in some ways, I loved Michael's acceptance of his own terms. And every novelist has to find a way somehow to realize that the thing that we do is not what most people want. What most people want is Drunk Midget House. But it was also just great fun writing that stuff.
Well, building off of that, you used language and your characters talked about language with such care in this book. The way you as an author presented your craft is like the opposite of Drunk Midget House. I loved the idea of the "Hotel Adequate View" and how Alvis teaches Pasquale's father that you need to careful with your words. Is that something you think about as a writer? How conscious are your word choices, or does it just kind of flow from you?
For a writer, those are the musical notes. Most of those 15 years I spent on the novel were not spent sitting around imagining what the characters do, they were spent trying to hone the sentences and make them sound right to my ear — and they may not sound right to someone else's. And especially, I think a book like this where you want to try to embrue meaning into everything the characters do and say, so you work hard on the dialogue. Really the joy of the whole process is working on all those lines. And I finish most days of writing by reading aloud what I've done just to hear the sound of it, to hear how it feels coming out of my mouth.
The other piece of this story we haven't talked about yet is the Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton section. How did they find their way into your novel?
Really accidentally! It's kind of crazy that this is sort of the winter of Burton, you know, with his diaries out and all this interest in him. Because when I first found myself venturing back to that story it seemed like almost a forgotten bit of Hollywood. But it came about basically because I knew that I wanted to write about the Cinque Terre during a time before it had become polluted with tourists like me. And then the other impulse I had originally was that the woman, Dee, would be a character about my mom's age. So that put me sort of in the early '60s. And I had watched a bunch of Fellini films and that just seemed like the most romantic period of any place, anywhere. I was just so taken by the Felliniesque aspect of Italy during that time.
But when I was doing research, trying to figure out what was going on there, I came across Cleopatra. And it was such a train wreck! I loved every detail: an agent getting shot in the groin by a producer, and Elizabeth Taylor nearly dying, and the affair, and the birth of the paparazzi, and all of it! And as I sort of incorporated it I had the epiphany that sort of shows up in the book, that this was a moment where we created modern celebrity. Fame and infamy cross, and it didn't matter why you were famous. You were just famous. And it seemed like every sex tape in the world owed its origin to what had happened on the set of that film. So it felt like a thematic discovery before I ever was interested in the characters. And then the more I read about Burton the more I just became entranced by him. And never as much Elizabeth Taylor for some reason. I felt like we knew her, but Burton was someone that I just became more and more fascinated by. And he just sort of hovered over the novel like its ghost.
And people are still obsessed with the story! It was funny, I was going back through the book while everyone on my Twitter feed was talking about the Liz &amp; Dick Lifetime movie.
I think there were more Twitter feeds about that than the election; it was crazy! It was the same thing, I don't spend much time on Twitter, but when I hopped on, Patton Oswalt — who's so entertaining — was going on and on about that movie. I didn't watch a second of it. I did race to Richard Burton's diaries, and was so pleased to see that there's a gap during which my novel takes place which makes me think, "Oh, it's still plausible." There's about a four-year gap, and it's 1960-'64, so it fits perfectly in with the imagined Richard Burton that I've created.
I'm curious what you've read that you've loved this year.
Oh man, there's so many good books this year! Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk was remarkable. I so love it. And I like Lauren Groff's Arcadia very much. Oh, I liked Dave Egger's Hologram for the King. Boy there were so many! Richard Russo's Elsewhere was a great memoir, Wiley Cash's A Land More Kind Than Home was great. There were so many things that I read! It was kind of a crazy year. I just kept thinking, "That's the best book I've read in a while!" Oh, Martin Amis' new novel Lionel Asbo I thought was really hilarious. I don't think I read a bad book this year.
What draws you to a book when you're deciding what you're going to read next?
I read sort of the same way I write, which is I want something completely different from the last thing I just finished. The novel I wrote before Beautiful Ruins was very straightforward and first person, none of the elaborate structure. And so usually when I finish a novel, let's say I finished a tight first person novel, the next thing I want I want to be big and elaborate. And I'm drawn by reviews and word of mouth and all that stuff. But I think I read for escape less than most of the people I know. There's always that moment when authors confront their readers and they realize what people often want is a great tale and to escape, and authors often want to drag you back into reality. But that's why I think realistic fiction is where I tend to spend the most time.
Follow Abbey Stone on Twitter @abbeystone
[Photo Credit: Hannah Assouline/Harper Collins]
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The former Beatles star also recreated his collaboration with the existing members of Nirvana, which he debuted at 12-12-12 The Concert for Sandy Relief. The new song Cut Me Some Slack features on the soundtrack of Dave Grohl's new documentary about California recording mecca Sound City Studios.
The host and musical guest also teamed up to perform as Caleb &amp; Monty, a duo auditioning for an amateur revue.
McCartney ended the skit by playing his beloved festive tune Wonderful Christmastime, backed by New York City Children's Chorus choir, which opened the Saturday Night Live festive special by performing Silent Night.
The moving rendition of the carol replaced the series' traditional comedy monologue and was dedicated to the 20 students and the staff killed in the massacre at a Connecticut elementary school on Friday (14Dec12).
But the festive episode wasn't without controversy - Jackson accidentally swore during one skit, prompting castmember Kenan Thompson to quip, "Come on, Sam... that costs us money."
The Pulp Fiction star later took to his Twitter.com page to deny saying "f**k", although he admitted using the word "bulls**t".
He tweeted, "I only said FUH not F&amp;*K! K was sposed (supposed) to cut off da BULL%^&amp;T (sic), blew it!!"

Some of the biggest names in music have gathered to raise money for Hurricane Sandy victims at the 12.12.12: The Concert for Sandy Relief, and just because you're not at Madison Square Garden doesn't mean you can't watch the benefit.
Thanks to modern technology, you can watch a live stream of the musical happenings right here on Hollywood.com.
Big names like Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney (fronting a Nirvana cover band with Dave Grohl, apparently), The Rolling Stones, Eddie Vedder, Bon Jovi, Roger Waters, The Who, Billy Joel, Alicia Keys, Eric Clapton, Chris Martin, and Kanye West are all scheduled to play at the concert, which is being broadcast live on 37 television networks and 27 websites.
Without further ado, check out the concert below!
Follow Jean on Twitter @hijean
[PHOTO CREDIT: WENN.com]
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Hey Jude, see if you can wrap your head around this one. Two of the greatest, most influential legends of rock 'n' roll are fusing for what is one of the coolest, if not strangest, collaborations in music history. During Wednesday night's all-star 12-12-12 Hurricane Sandy benefit concert at New York City's Madison Square Garden, Sir Paul McCartney will be performing with "Dave Grohl and Friends."
According to Rolling Stone, some of Grohl's friends, in addition to McCartney and Diana Krall, includes fellow founding member of Nirvana Krist Novoselic and former touring guitarist Pat Smear. In other words, Wednesday night's concert will tout the long, long-awaited Nirvana reunion... featuring a member of The Beatles filling in for the late Kurt Cobain. On the Twitter page for Grohl's other great rock band, Foo Fighters, they cryptically promise, "We have something very special for you tonight NYC..."
You can take a minute to let this all sink in.
Speaking of letting this information all sink in, this is what Sir Paul (who will also serve as musical guest on Saturday Night Live this weekend) recently told the U.K.'s The Guardian regarding his upcoming collaboration: "I didn't really know who they were. They are saying how good it is to be back together. I said, 'Whoa? You guys haven't played together for all that time?' And somebody whispered to me: 'That's Nirvana. You're Kurt.' I couldn't believe it."
Whether or not McCartney will actually sing any of Nirvana's classics (imagine just how different "Smells Like Teen Spirit" would sound) what we do know is that he will join Grohl and co. to "jam with some mates." Hopefully McCartney will also get another chance to jam with his other mate Bruce Springsteen at tonight's event. No way will New York City cut their mics.
The legendary-evening-in-the-making 12-12-12 Hurricane Sandy benefit concert — which also has scheduled performances by The Rolling Stones, Eddie Vedder, Bon Jovi, Roger Waters, The Who, Billy Joel, Alicia Keys, Eric Clapton, Chris Martin, and Kanye West — will begin at 7:30 p.m. ET and air on 37 television networks and 27 websites, making it the most widely distributed live music event ever. Check out the full list of places to watch here.
[Photo credit: WENN]
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